Governing Communities:Parish-Pump Politics or Strategic Partnerships?

The parish pump and the strategic partnership provide two contrasting images of the governance of local communities. The former emphasises local self-government by citizens through democratic processes. The latter concentrates on partnership board meetings where key public, private and voluntary sector actors shape the nature of the local community. An historical perspective is used to demonstrate that the context for UK local governance in the early twentyfirst century is similar to that outside the big cities in the late nineteenth century, but that the policy prescriptions in each era give significantly different roles to elected local authorities. Liberal democratic theories of local govemment are found wanting in the contemporary setting of strategic partnerships. In contrast, consociational theory provides helpful insights into the process of governance by multiple, semi-autonomous actors, but has weaknesses in relation to the articulation between strategic partnerships and civil society. New theorisations of the governance of local communities could build on these approaches.